MP Says ‘Escalation Better than Deadlock’ as President Expected to Deliver 'Explosive' Speech

Free Patriotic Movement MP Alain Aoun said that any step that President Michel Aoun might take today “shouldn’t be considered as an escalation but would rather be for the benefit of the Lebanese.”

“The President’s stance, at its core, is not to take part in the (government’s) obstruction,” Aoun said, asking what would be more alarming, “to escalate or to remain in the situation we are in?”

“Nothing is more harmful than this deadlock,” the MP said. “Any step would be less costly than running round in circles, for two years now.”

“We will not be partners in the obstruction and in spinning in a vicious cycle,” Aoun asserted. “We will not accept to stand idly by watching the collapse, I think that what the President will start comes from this context.”

the MP decried that “the president can’t remain a spectator and that despite his initiatives, things are not getting resolved.”

“President Aoun is more eager on the Cabinet reconvening than those who are entrusted with it. He will not accept to limit the government’s work to exceptional approvals,” the lawmaker said.

“We must meet him halfway,” he added.

“The government cannot be held hostage to the judiciary amid urgent economic and social matters that must be a priority,” Aoun said, stressing that “leaving the Lebanese in standby mode is a crime.”

Concerning the relation with Hizbullah, the lawmaker said that the two parties are to have an “open dialogue.”

He affirmed that the FPM and Hizbullah are willing to have a deep evaluation of their relation “to see if it still serves its purposes.”

“The understandings must rise to the level of the challenges and must go beyond empty rhetoric,” Aoun said.